Pulling US chestnuts out of Egypt fire
The Muslim Brotherhood will be rejuvenated by its confrontation with Egypt's ruling military junta.
Don’t write Brotherhood off too soon
(Published in The Daily Star, Lebanon, July 16, 2013) Alejandro Jodorowsy said, “Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness.” The French filmmaker’s remark was resoundingly vindicated by Egypt’s liberal elites. They led massive crowds against President Muhammad Mursi and succeeded in getting the all-too-willing army to overthrow his year-old democratically elected government....
Egyptians, unite to rescue democracy!
My hats off to Egypt’s secular and Islamist revolutionaries for the courage and spirit of freedom they demonstrated when they bundled out Hosni Mubarak’s monstrous dictatorship. Over the decades I have developed an interest in Egyptian society and politics. I cherish my friendship with Egyptians in Egypt and the United States. I understand Egyptian secularists’...
Syria: Needed US-Islamist detente
THE UNITED STATES has taken a welcome step to tackle the Syrian crisis. It has joined Russia in arranging a peace conference in Geneva next month, which, unfortunately, would also expose America’s diminished global standing. The end of Syria’s murderous Bashar al-Assad regime will come, however, from its eventual attrition from the uprising. A main...
Pakistan’s scary quest for roots
WHY IS PAKISTAN being riven by Sunni-Shia and Sunni-Ahmadi strife? A scholar at Columbia University shares his thoughts on the question in a New York Times op-ed entitled “Pakistan’s tyrannical majority.” Manan Ahmed Asif quotes Muhammad Ali Jinnah telling Pakistanis: “[E]very one of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations...
Abbas to U.S.: Go fly a kite!
The Independent echoed the common Western views of Salam Fayyad’s resignation. The Palestinian prime minister’s exit had “thro[wn] into doubt the future of the Palestinian Authority and the peace process with Israel,” observed the liberal British newspaper. Has Fayyad’s parting really caused – or rather reflected – the crisis facing the Palestinian government and the...
Time to get over anti-Islamist paranoia
ANDREW J. BACEVICH says “the big story of Muslim self-determination is likely to continue unimpeded” and lead to the rollback of American hegemony over Muslim societies. In his Washington Post piece, the historian recalled that when the British Empire was collapsing, it could turn over its “imperial responsibility” to the United States. But Americans today,...
Bangladesh’s quest for identity
Providence JournalMarch 17, 2013 I’m saddened by the bloody mayhem rocking Bangladesh, where I lived and worked through two turbulent decades. Street fights between the country’s secularist government forces and Islamist activists have claimed dozens of lives. The clashes were triggered by a death sentence handed down by a Bangladeshi court to a leader of...
Bangladesh’s epic quest for identity
I’M SADDENED by the bloody mayhem rocking Bangladesh, where I lived and worked through two turbulent decades. Street fights between the country’s secularist government forces and Islamist activists have claimed dozens of lives. The clashes were triggered by a death sentence handed by a Bangladeshi court to a leader of the Islamist political party Jamaat-e-Islami. ...
John Kerry: Same old same old
John Kerry’s recipe to meet U.S. foreign policy challenges appeared to have been copied from the neoconservatives’ play book: trade, aid and democracy. All these have been tried. They didn’t work.